The Government today said telecom companies have a total outstanding of Rs 587.24 crore as dues for licence fee and spectrum charges.

The amount includes Rs 36.57 crore dues towards licence fee and Rs 550.67 crore for spectrum charges from the various telecom companies, the Minister of State for Communications and IT, Mr Milind Deora, informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

Bharti Airtel owes Rs 17.66 crore as licence fee and Rs 129.80 crore in spectrum charges.

Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular owe Rs 132.56 crore and Rs 27.94 crore as spectrum charges, respectively, besides Spice Communications (Rs 3.29 crore), Aircel (Rs 1.77 crore) and MTNL (Rs 4.92 crore).

Besides, Mr Deora said that apart from the entry fee charged by the Department of Telecom towards grant of Cellular and UAS licences from 2001 onwards, no separate up-front charge has been levied for allotment of 6.2 MHz of GSM or 5 MHz of CDMA spectrum to cellular licensees.

However, annual spectrum usage charges are being levied from these licencees as a percentage of adjusted gross revenue, he added.

Telecom regulator TRAI in its recommendations last year on ‘Spectrum Management and Licensing Framework' said that the contracted spectrum for all the access licences issued in or after 2001 is 6.2 MHz and 5 MHz in respect of GSM and CDMA operators.

Mr Deora said the recommendations of May 2010 are under considerations of the Government and being a matter of policy formation, it is not feasible to specify a timeframe for final decision.

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